now on the flipside, here's a sickening example of what happens when folks go from venting their constitutionally protected (and respectable) opposition to homosexuality to spreading lies and scare-mongering young people into thinking gays are rapists and evil.
by the way, these monsters that murdered their fellow soldier in cold blood only got life... they should have gotten the death penalty, though i'm comforted by the fact that these jag-offs are likely getting some homosexual love in the butt right now in prison on a daily basis.

The people who loved and respected Pfc. Barry L. Winchell formed a human circle around his hospital bed as he died.

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name," the chaplain began reciting.

The sergeants linked hands with the colonels, who reached out to the private's mother and father.

Then, all but his mother, Kansas Citian Pat Kutteles, left the hospital room. She stayed long enough to say a private goodbye.

Then the switches were turned off, and the machines stopped pushing air into his lungs, stopped warming his body, stopped regulating his heartbeat.

Private First Class Barry L. Winchell became a homicide victim.

And more.

He became a martyr for the gay and lesbian movement.

He also became a catalyst for changes in the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gay troops.

But the least publicized role of all causes the most anguish -- Barry Winchell was Pat and Wally Kutteles' 21-year-old son.

"It upsets me to watch that Army slogan now: `Be all you can be,' " his mother said. "Well, Barry tried to be all he could be, and he was murdered."

In their south Kansas City home the Kutteleses struggle with questions of how much blame the Army should share for the death, the never-ending media requests and the stress of the upcoming courts-martial of the suspects in the killing.

An autopsy determined that Winchell was hit three times on the head with a baseball bat.

The Kutteleses say they were told he was asleep in his Army barracks at Fort Campbell, Ky., in the July 5 attack.

"It was a very cowardly crime," his mother said. "They didn't even go for his arms and legs; they went straight for his skull."

"They didn't even give him a chance to fight back," Wally Kutteles added.

In part because of pressure from a gay and lesbian legal group, the Army is investigating whether Winchell was killed because other soldiers thought he was gay.

The killing doubled the number of calls to an advocacy group for military members accused of being gay -- from a monthly average of about 30 to more than 60 in August and September.

"I think this shattered any illusion for people that they could somehow control their own safety in the military," said Michelle Benecke, co-director of the Washington-based Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. "It has terrified them."

Their son's possible homosexuality is another factor with which the Kutteleses must grapple. As far as they knew, their son was a straight man who had dated the same girl for years. He never told them of any harassment, yet testimony at hearings in the case revealed he was harassed almost daily by other soldiers who suspected he was gay.

Spc. Justin R. Fisher, 25, of Lincoln, Neb., was Winchell's roommate. Fisher is charged with encouraging Glover to hit Winchell, acting as an accessory after the murder, lying under oath to Army investigators and obstructing the investigation.

Glover's court-martial is to begin Tuesday.

"The thought of walking into the court is so overwhelming to me it is unreal," Winchell's mother said. "But I know I have to not think about it and just do it. That is how I do everything now."

Terrible phone call

Pat Kutteles knew her son was dead within minutes of answering the colonel's phone call.

An early riser, she was puttering about her kitchen when he called at 7 a.m.

From the bedroom, Wally Kutteles heard her cry out. When he rushed to the kitchen, he found his wife's face filled with tears, her voicing stammering that Barry had been kicked in the head.

They hurriedly packed the car, preparing to drive to Fort Campbell, which straddles the Tennessee-Kentucky border. The phone rang again. It was the colonel. "Don't drive; the Army will fly you," he said.

And then he gave Pat, a registered nurse, a phone number for the doctor overseeing Winchell's care at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.

"The doctor told me Barry was on life support and had irreparable damage," Pat Kutteles said. "I knew. I knew when he said `irreparable brain damage.' "

When they arrived at the hospital, the son they lovingly nicknamed "Bear Bear" was hardly recognizable, because of fluid swelling his brain.

"His eyes were both black and swelled up tight," Wally Kutteles said. "The skin was so tight. His head was the size of a basketball."

His mother demanded that three tests be run to check the level of brain activity.

"Then, I told them they could turn the machines off," she said.

The Kutteleses asked the officers whether they could thank the soldier they heard had valiantly tried to help their son.

The youngest of three boys, he was diagnosed with dyslexia, a learning disability that made reading difficult.

He repeated kindergarten twice.

He did not learn the ABC's until the third grade.

He never learned to write more than his name in cursive.

But he was smart in other ways, his mother said. "He had a hard time learning the multiplication tables, but could do abstract math," she said.

Spunky as a child, Winchell loved to tumble on a mattress outside the family home, do push-ups from the age of 5 and climb trees even as an adult.

The Army seemed a perfect fit.

"He finally found a place where he was happy," his mother said.

At the memorial service, officers told the family of Winchell's expert shooting, how he had corrected diagrams in textbooks and the awards he had won.

It was through Wally Kutteles that Winchell first became enamored of the Army and flying. Kutteles was a technical writer and editor for the aerospace program.

As a child, Winchell wanted to be an astronaut. Before he died, he had been accepted to fly helicopters.

Kutteles met Barry's mother when Barry was 5 years old.

Before that, the fatherless family lived in several states. Barry was born in Kansas City, where Pat Kutteles had grown up.

But the family became homeless for two months after Pat left an abusive relationship.

Sometimes, Barry and one of his brothers would wait in the car in the parking lot outside the waffle houses where their mother found work. They also lived in shelters and in their car.

The difficult times gave Barry compassion, his mother said.

And, it helped form his attitude that adversity would strengthen him.

"He used to always tell me, suck up and drive on, Mom," she said. "I can still hear him saying it."

Fight at party

The weekend Barry Winchell died was a rowdy one, according to his parents and testimony in military hearings.

Military trial counselors, who are similar to prosecutors, said in one hearing that the killing occurred two days after a drunken Glover, 18, picked a fight with Winchell, 21, at a July 3 party at Fort Campbell.

The trial counsel, or prosecutor, in Glover's hearing said that revenge was the motive behind Winchell's killing. Capt. Gregg Engler argued that Glover attacked Winchell because Glover had lost a fight to him at a party.

Witnesses at Glover's hearing testified that Winchell was ridiculed in his unit about being homosexual.

A few months earlier Winchell had formed a friendship with a man who was a preoperative transsexual, his parents said.

The man lives as a woman and has been taking hormone therapy.

The night of the fight, Winchell volunteered to sleep on a cot outside his room to keep the company's mascot, a dog, quiet through the night, his parents said.

Sometime around 3 a.m. he was attacked.

Troubled nights

The Kutteleses days and nights are filled with private mourning.

Her sleep comes in two- to three-hour bouts.

His are filled with dreams. Each time, Wally Kutteles is a prosecutor in a courtroom. Winchell sits beside him, coaxing him with questions for the defendants.

They chain smoke, a habit they had kicked for six years before the killing.

The Kutteleses answer some of the hundreds of letters and e-mails, many from former soldiers who acknowledge being gay.

But she is perplexed and hurt that her son would not tell her if he was gay.

"I always told the boys that if you are, you are," she said. "As far as I'm concerned it is a biological thing."

A bigger issue to her is if the Army did nothing about the harassment.

Under the "don't ask, don't tell," policy, soldiers are not to be harassed or asked about their sexuality, said Benecke, of the Legal Defense Network.

The group interceded in the case when it received calls from officers at Fort Campbell and others who alleged the Army was reluctant to investigate whether Winchell was killed as a hate crime against gays.

Army representatives would not comment on specifics of the case.

Weeks after Winchell's death, the Pentagon ordered commanders to seek approval from senior civilian officials before initiating certain kinds of investigations of soldiers who acknowledged being gay.

Commanders also were ordered to institute anti-harassment training at all levels of the service, and military lawyers were told to consult superiors before investigating soldiers suspected of being gay.

The Kutteleses do not always agree on who is to blame for their son's death, but one reaches for the other whenever the tears begin to fall.

A stone bench has been ordered for Pat Kutteles to sit upon near her son's grave at Mount Moriah Cemetery.

"I think I am still stuck, yes, stuck, that is the word," she said. "It has been hitting me and hitting me that my child is not coming home. That is where I am."

and while we're at, let's examine some sickening hypocricy in this case by the "faithful" who use the Bible as a crutch for hatred and willful ignorance in the face of evil

Barry's murder has laid bare the inconsistencies in the faith community in the Diocese of Tennessee. Many Episcopal clergy have been active in protesting Tennessee's resumption of the death penalty, but have kept silence about this hate crime. One priest told me that the Cambridge Resolution was "good, but it has the word 'homosexual' in it." And he declined to support it or discuss it with his mission council. Bishop Herlong has refused to respond to email, letters, and phone calls about the Cambridge Resolution and Barry's murder. At the last meeting of the Standing Committee, Bishop Herlong stated he will not sign the Cambridge Resolution because it is "too political." However, a few weeks ago the bishop took the very political step of meeting with Governor Sundquist to voice opposition to capital punishment. Bishop Herlong's approach to social justice and human rights is a pick and choose "buffet" and not an inclusive banquet that includes everyone. I continue to be amazed and bewildered that Christian people are fearful of being identified as "pro gay" or "pro same sex blessing" if they speak out on behalf of a young man who was bludgeoned to death because of his sexual orientation. I believe this sort of inhospitality is antithetical to the claims of the Gospel and it epitomizes the real sin of Sodom. The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee under the leadership of Bishop Bertram Herlong has squandered another opportunity to be truly evangelical because of partisan rigidity. God forgive us.
from http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/991208winchell.html

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by the way, for new and old alike who may not know me, here are some quick facts that are pertinent to the ongoing gay discussion/argument we have and my stand in it

i'm in the Navy

i know a good number of gay sailors and marines, and a few of them do not hide it (or can't, its that obvious in manner), and no one has a problem with it.... my aircraft carrier's soccer team (Japan championship winning) captain is the most obvious homosexual on base, and he is respected and praised by nearly all.

i like gay people, i don't like gay marriage (civil unions please)

my introduction to anti-gay violence and hatred was at the young age of 7 when my brother's art teacher (and my pee wee soccer coach) had his face slashed and his left ear cut off by some homophobes at a concert who didn't appreciate his "i'm gay, i'm still a human" t-shirt... the guy never taught again and killed himself two years later

sadly, for those wishing to label me a fag, i'm not gay, i love latin girls and going down on my girl too much to go that route... but thank you, if it all came down to it, i'd rather be a homo than a homophobe (a significant number of whom are closet homos who hate themselves for it)

Thanks Nato - I really needed to begin my day by shedding a few tears! This story is absolutely disgusting! A man's sexual preference is reason to kill? As I've stated previously, I am friendly with quite a few gay people and as long as their private lives stay in the bedroom, I am fine with it. I also find people who are into rough or kinky sex a bit on the disgusting side! Anything other than the missionary position in my book is kinky. Guess I'm truly from the old ages! Here was a boy who was willing to put his life on the line for his country - which took guts - there are a lot of "straight" people out there who find any reason possible to avoid going into the service. This kid had balls, and my heart is breaking for his family!

Who said that gays cannot serve honorably? I do not recall any assertion that gays were craven cowards who would drop their perfumed hankies and run at the sound of the first shot.

The assertion was that gays were a detriment to good order and discipline. If anything, this article supports the assertion that gays should not be allowed into an essentially all-male society where strict discipline is demanded and violence is part of the profession.

There is little doubt that PFC Winchell's lifestyle was repugnant to others in his unit, especially, as the article states
"A few months earlier Winchell had formed a friendship with a man who was a preoperative transsexual, his parents said.

The man lives as a woman and has been taking hormone therapy. "

But that being said, PFC Winchell certainly did not deserve to be attacked, much less murdered for his lifestyle. Those who killed him should receive a death sentence themselves and if there were true justice, they should be executed by gays with ball bats.

The issue of gays in the military traces its current roots back to that swine Clinton, who despised the military. He saw an opportunity to slap the faces of the military brass by implementing the "don't ask . . ." policy.

Clinton, like most libs, view the military as an extravagant waste of money. Money that they would much rather use to buy votes by increasing their beloved handout programs. Clinton and the libs used the military not only to promote their pandering to homosexuals, but also as a means of social experimentation. Both policies are wrong.

PFC Winchell's death is a multi-level tragedy. It is tragic because it was a cruel and senseless waste of a human life and it is tragic because the circumstances of his death were ultimately the result of the policies forced on the military by the cynical scheming of an amoral, unethical, and uncaring president.

i can't fathom how many times i've heard in my life people claim gays are poor soldiers, sailors, airmen, etc etc, less than human,evil, distrustful, etc etc.

merlin, if this was the one step simple cure-all, how come pres. bush hasn't even touched this issue or used his usually bold leadership to change it?

i personally think in this day and age, aside from a few idiots who should be culled out of the military anyway, gays should serve. my own experiences and those of others i know second this argument. i'm sure others have their own experiences as well, i respect that. i'm just saying in America's largest naval fleet (here in Japan), we have hardly any problems with homosexuals serving openly. as we all bitch and complain at CO's NJP (Captain's Mast), thieves are the people that piss us off the most, not drunks, brawlers or gays.

i can trust a gay guy to pull me out of a fire, i can't trust a thief.
i can trust a gay guy not to steal my shower shoes out of my rack while i sleep, i can't trust a thief in the same circumstances.
i can trust a gay guy to go out drinking with me and others and not steal from me when i pass out or get really plastered, i can't trust a thief with the same.
i can trust a gay guy to do the work i assign him, i can't trust a thief or malingerer with the same.

I will be happy to agree that thieves should also not serve in the military.

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:2guns: death penalty for thieves at times of war!

Merlin1047 said:

But I know that I would not be happy serving in a unit where other men found me attractive

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how often does this truly happen though? is it widespread? i'd guess there are more guys banging another guy in their unit's g/f / wife than there are gay guys asking out/trying to screw their fellow soldiers.

First off, I'd like to say how sorry I feel for the victim and his family. I have never advocated nor insinuated that any harm should ever come to a queer, let alone death. It's GOD's job to judge them, and dole out punishment, as he so clearly states he will, not ours.

Second, I have no problem with queers in the military. If they want to fight, let them. My only problem is with Basic Training. Homo's would have to be in with the girls, whom they DON'T find attractive, and lesbians would have to be in with the boys, whom THEY don't find attractive. I can't see any other way, because if you put them all in together, it would be the same as putting straight men and women in together, and we all know how that would turn out.

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